Friday, October 08, 2004

It's the visibility, stupid!

BushCo's gift to the world is the ultimate photo-op presidency. They don't want you to see flag-draped coffins, and they don't care if the "Mission Accomplished" Kodak moment was completely divorced from reality.

What happens when Iraqis start posting pictures on a … popular photo portal where it is easy for Americans … to find them? What happens when pro- and anti-occupation Iraqis start posting graphic pictures to make their points? What happens when we have an unmediated, high emotional impact, people-to-people conversation with video and pictures?

If you want to know, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for the Iraq tag at Flickr.

I can't emphasize how potentially damaging this can be to Bush. I was co-incidentally in a conversation today about how the Neo-Cons adopt many of the stock brainwashing techniques of cults in their practice of post modern politics: isolate the recruit from their support networks (in the case of America, from the world community and traditional allies), control the flow of information (cf Republican-owned media conglomerates), repetition repetition repetition (cf Outfoxxed), to create an an artificial environment into which reality doesn't intrude to spoil their outrageous lies.

I repeat: reality's biting their ass this time. And reality is the best antitode to the artificial hothouse in which they hold America captive.

On a related note, if you really want to take a radical and effective anti-war, anti-Bush stance: put a white cross in your front yard for every soldier killed in Iraq from your community or your state. [Credit to Steve Ybarra of Latinos for Democracy for the idea.] As long as the war is invisible, it isn't real, and it has no consequence to voters. If you care, then MAKE it a real issue in this election...for the people who drive down your street--bymaking it VISIBLE and therefore real.